The three men remained motionless on the sidewalk, no one moving a muscle as the stranger closed in on their position. The approaching stranger never had the slightest inclination he wasn’t alone until he was ten yards from the group and John got to a knee, his night-vision goggles flipped in the up position, and his rifle leveled in the business position.
“Take it easy, friend,” John soothed in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
The stranger stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t move a muscle; it was as though he’d been frozen in place.
“We ain’t here to hurt you, my man,” John continued. “Just don’t point that damn rifle at me and we’ll get along just fine. Why don’t you let it hang from that sling you got there, and we can talk.”
Jared rose to a knee, his rifle pointed at the stranger, who actually looked more like a teen. The teen stared at Jared and his friends for a few very long seconds before letting the rifle slip from his hands, where it hung loosely from a makeshift sling, pointing toward the ground. Jared automatically went to low ready with his rifle as John did the same.
“You alone, son?” John inquired.
The teen blinked twice, then bobbed his head in the affirmative, his lips pursed tightly together. “I ain’t taking nothing from anyone out here. I’m just popping some rats so I can eat,” the teen rasped.
“No one’s sweating you,” John said. “Just a lot of shit has happened, and people aren’t as nice as they used to be, so we have to be careful.”
The teen nodded, and for the first time Jared noticed he had a bag or satchel hanging from his shoulders. Jared could only assume it was his rat bag. The thought sickened him, but he also wondered how bad it had to be where some millennial was out in the middle of the night foraging for rats to eat with what appeared to be a .22-caliber rifle. The teen caught Jared staring at the bag.
“Got three so far. Usually I kill squirrels, but I didn’t get any today, and I have to eat, so rats are the only other thing left in the city I can kill with this .22,” the kid stated dejectedly as he looked down at the little rifle.
Jared made eye contact with him and smiled grimly. “Where is everyone?”
The teen glanced around, then shook his head. “They’re here—some of them at least.” The teen looked up the street nervously. “We shouldn’t be standing out here too long. You guys aren’t from around here, are you?”
“Not anymore,” Barry said, inserting himself into the conversation and trying to forget how frightened he’d been a few seconds before.
“I have a safe place we can go if you guys have some normal food. You can stay the night. We can trade,” the teen suggested in a hesitant voice as he stared at the ground, fidgeting with his rifle sling.
The trio looked at each other for a moment; then John spoke up. “We do have a little food, and I am willing to trade a tiny bit for some information but, if you try anything stupid, people are going to get hurt.”
The teen looked confused. “People?”
“Yeah, if you try to lead us into some sort of ambush or anything hinky, your people are going to pay with loss of life, if you know what I mean,” John elucidated with a raised brow.
The teen shook his head adamantly. “No, I have no people. My parents never came home after the power went out. I’m a minor, man. I don’t do those things to people.” The teen looked genuinely troubled that John would think he was capable of foul play.
“You’re alone out here, no parents, no friends, no nobody?” John pushed.
“Just me,” the teen reiterated.
“Let’s go,” John urged. “Remember what I said though. There are three of us, and we aren’t carrying .22 rifles.”
Chapter 9
The teen led the men down several streets, through some yards and into a more industrial neighborhood before cutting to the rear of a building and skirting along the back side of three more businesses along the sound wall that separated Highway 680 from the neighborhood. Coming to the fourth business, the teen stopped and grabbed a board that was covered in dirt and hid a small depression in the earth directly under the fence that encircled the business.
All three men tossed their packs over the fence before crawling one at a time through the small depression and under the fence. After they were all through to the inside, the teen replaced the board and reapplied dirt, effectively camouflaging the depression from unsuspecting eyes of the outside world. Without a word, he turned and marched across the twenty-yard distance to the back door of an older iron fabrication business.
The teen reached behind a large piece of plywood on the outside of the iron fabrication building and grabbed a wire with a wooden handle attached to the end. Jared’s eyes followed the wire up the side of the building, where it disappeared through a gash in the sheet metal siding of the shop. The teen tugged the wire while simultaneously pushing on the heavy door, which swung easily open. Once the foursome was inside the shop, Jared caught the lived-in smell of the place. This was where this kid lived all by himself, or at least that was the story he was telling them, and by the looks of the place, his story seemed plausible.
John and Jared appeared relaxed, but they were both searching the interior of the building for any indication the teen wasn’t being entirely truthful with them. Their initial scan of the building’s interior yielded no evidence of any imminent foul play, but neither Jared nor John relaxed much.
The teen walked across the shop and hung his rifle on a hook against the far wall before turning and facing the three men, who all watched in amazement. Jared studied the kid and wondered if all the skulking about the city and eating rodents had simply turned the teen into a human version of a rat. Jared wasn’t judging the kid. Everyone had a story, and anyone who was alive today was a victim of some terribly horrific experiences. People were being forced to do things in order to survive that they would never have believed themselves capable of before the solar flare.
“So what’s going on down here in the city?” John asked by way of breaking the silence before it became any more awkward.
The teen shrugged. “I mean, my mom was on the east coast for business, and my dad works in San Francisco, so both were gone when this all happened. I was already home from school, so I just waited, thinking the power would come back on. That was like, what, two, maybe three months ago?” He finished with a shrug, briefly catching each of their eyes.
John hefted his muscled shoulders. “Something like that.”
“The day after, I was freaked out, you know—my parents didn’t come home, so I didn’t go to school. I went to some neighbor’s house, and they didn’t know what was going on. I mean, I kinda knew something bad had happened by the third day, plus there was a lot of shooting, and I didn’t hear any sirens, and one of my neighbors’ houses burned down while they were trying to cook inside with the barbeque or something.” The teen’s eyes stared blankly at the floor as he was clearly internally reliving some of what he was telling them about.
“Where is everyone?” John asked.
“I think a lot of people left and went towards the ocean. Someone started talking about there being food over there and people could fish, and I saw a lot of people heading that way about a month or month and a half ago. The city calmed down after that, but there are still a lot of people here who do some pretty shitty things to other people—sorry about cussing.”
All three men chuckled. “I think you’ve earned a couple of low-end curse words,” Jared quipped. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Devon,” the teen replied, looking up to meet Jared’s gaze.
“Well, Devon, I’m Jared and this is Barry and John, and you’re right about one thing. We are not from around here and do not intend to stay down here for long. We were passing through when we interrupted your hunting expedition.”
Devon mulled this over for a moment. “Where are you guys headed?”
“Woodside,” Barry answered, much to John’s dismay.
�
��I can help you get through the city. I know where they all are. They set traps for people, and I know exactly where they do it. There are a bunch of different groups, and they fight all the time, but they’ll get you if you’re not from here, that’s for sure.”
John dropped his pack, but kept the rifle hanging from the sling, as did Jared and Barry. John dug out some real normal food, as Devon had put it earlier, and offered it to the teen. The food was a chunk of dry stale bread, which Devon took and began to eat immediately. In between mouthfuls, he gestured towards a catwalk with a ladder leading to the roof.
“If you guys need to cook, I have a camping stove up on the roof, but I wouldn’t do any cooking at night. During the day, the wind takes the smell away, and no one can see the flame like they can at night.”
After Devon finished the stale bread, the men talked to him about moving through the city and how they could get to the west side without getting killed so they could take to the hills in order to use the terrain to mask their movement. Devon assured them he could guide them through without a problem.
Devon told Jared and his friends that his uncle was an iron fabricator, and Devon had spent many of his summer days hanging out with his uncle at the shop when his parents didn’t have him in a camp or couldn’t find a babysitter. The shop they were now in was Devon’s uncle’s shop. Devon didn’t know where his uncle was or whether something bad had happened to him.
The four talked late into the night until John suggested they all get some sleep before the sun came up. John set up a watch rotation that excluded Devon, and everyone hunkered down for the remainder of the evening.
The following day, Devon conveyed to John he felt more comfortable traveling during the day than at night. The teen also had a city map, which he laid out for the group to see. He pointed out three areas along their route that harbored small groups of desperate and, consequently, unsavory people.
Devon explained the first danger they would need to bypass was a couple of guys he thought looked like bikers, only they didn’t ride motorcycles, they rode mountain bikes.
“One guy is kinda fat, and the other dude is skinny, and they have some girls, but they don’t bring them out.”
“Girls? Like their wives or girlfriends?” John asked, genuinely concerned.
Jared was already shaking his head, remembering the gangs he’d seen on his way through the built-up areas of San Carlos before he met Bart.
Devon’s face grew dark. “No, the girls, they take ’em—they keep ’em at their place, probably tied up ’cause they don’t come out even when the two dudes are gone.”
“How many?” John asked, menace replacing concern in his tone.
“I seen ’em take three, but there has to be more. I’m not always watching those guys,” Devon answered, his eyes darting about the group of three men.
“I think I’d like to meet these two guys,” John said, his tone unchanged from before.
“Stay on task, man,” Barry chirped.
John turned on him. “You shut your mouth, Barry. Did we help you, and are you helping us, and is this kid now helping all of us?”
Barry twitched his hands slightly without throwing them in the air. “We can’t go around saving the world, John. We have people relying on us to get what we came for and get back.”
“Maybe I should have had that same attitude when Essie was hiding under the kitchen sink while her father rotted on the floor less than fifteen feet from her, Barry,” Jared interjected, coming to John’s aid.
“No one’s asking you to go, Nancy,” John fired off. “But I’m gonna have a look-see ’cause it’s the right thing to do.”
John turned to Devon. “What time do these tick turds get out to their little ambush spot, and can you show me how they get there?”
Devon pumped his head, his eyes widening at the thought of these three men going out and actually looking for the men he spent every waking hour trying to avoid.
The two men usually didn’t wake till after 1000 hours and would take their time abusing their houseguests and eating before heading out to a choke point on a major thoroughfare. Devon showed John, Jared and a somewhat reluctant Barry to the general area by 0900 hours. Three hours later two dirty-looking males arrived, walking as if they were the apex predators in this region. Unbeknownst to the degenerate mountain bikers, there were other hunters in the area, with retribution on their minds.
Devon remained saucer-eyed, watching mostly John as he prepared for whatever he was going to perpetrate on these two unfortunate souls. The two mountain bikers were so brazen they had placed lawn chairs behind a large planter box on the side of the road, where they could sit and wait in relative comfort for their victims to approach. John looked over at Jared, who appeared calm, but the tension was obvious in the way his eyes darted about the area.
The mountain bikers accessed the back side of the planter box by way of a small alley, which ran between two three-story stucco office buildings that probably hadn’t been maintained all that well before the solar flare and now were even more run-down. The mountain bikers never had to walk down the street to reach their ambush point. John could clearly see the men from the shoulders up and figured if he and Jared fired simultaneously, they had a pretty good chance of getting both men at once.
“Hey, Jared,” John whispered. “You good to shoot one of these guys?”
“Just shoot ’em? Now?” Jared replied and shook his head. “They haven’t done anything yet.”
“Yeah, just shoot ’em.” John rolled his eyes. “They’re set up to ambush people right now. You wanna wait till they kill someone before you’re comfortable shooting one of them?” John’s voice elevated a hair too loud for Jared’s comfort, causing him to glance at the two mountain bikers behind the planter box. Neither would-be ambushee appeared to have heard John’s voice. “Fuck it. I’ll shoot both of ’em,” John hissed in an irritated whisper.
Before Jared could react, John hefted the rifle into his shoulder, centered his red dot sight on the fat guy, and squeezed the trigger. John was immediately back in the sights as the rifle bucked, centering the sight on the skinny guy. He pulled the trigger just as the man began to duck. John searched for the man in his sights just as the skinny mountain biker made a dash for the alleyway. John nearly flinched as Jared’s rifle barked in his ear and chunks of concrete erupted off the wall of the alleyway.
The fleeing mountain biker didn’t fall, keeping his feet pumping underneath himself, and disappeared from Jared and John’s sight.
“Not good, boys,” John yelled, getting to his feet. “Devon, show me where that house of theirs is. He’s gotta be headed home.” John grabbed the stunned lad by a shoulder and stared him in the eye. “Confirm there are only two of these shitheads?”
Devon shook his head, eyes round as Frisbees. “One—one now,” he stammered.
John studied the kid for a moment, then almost laughed as he gave him an affectionate shove while releasing his shoulder. “Yeah—one now, so one to go. Let’s get a move on. I’d like to meet him back at their pad and finish this.”
Devon took off at a run with Jared, John and Barry in tow. Five hundred yards later, Devon stopped and pointed ahead. The skinny man was unarmed and staggering towards the front gate of what appeared to be his den of iniquity. All the surrounding homes appeared fairly normal middle-income residences, and then there was this two-acre plot with a house set back about fifty yards from the street with a ten-foot fence complete with barbed wire encompassing the property’s entire perimeter.
The skinny man was fumbling with a large padlock on the front gate, blood soaking through his shirt on the back side from his collar to his beltline. Jared raised his rifle, but John pushed the muzzle down.
“Hold on. Let him open the gate first. Might be a combo lock, and I don’t want to climb that monster.”
As John finished, the man swung the gate open and turned to resecure it when John’s round struck him somewhere between the ear and n
ose. The man dropped on cue without so much as a twitch.
“Lights out, motherfucker,” John muttered gravely to himself.
“Jeez,” Barry murmured.
Chapter 10
To date, Barry hadn’t seen anything this violent. The suppressed crack of John’s rifle and the body lying on the ground just inside the gate shook him to his core. Most of his life had been lived in theory, accurate theory, but nothing like the raw reality he’d just witnessed. Barry stared at the motionless body, his heart pounding while his head swam with the memory of John’s callous remark after the biker hit the deck.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Barry groaned.
Jared looked over and saw Barry’s skin was ashen white. “John.”
John looked over just in time to see Barry pitch forward into the dirt. “Ah, for crying out loud,” John blurted out in annoyance. “Roll him over.”
Jared moved to Barry’s side and grabbed the man by the shoulder in order to turn him onto his back. Jared’s touch triggered Barry to flail and start swinging indiscriminately. Jared stumbled back and plopped on his butt in the dirt while Devon watched in wonderment at the spectacle.
“Come on,” John barked. “Watch the house.” John moved over, swatted Barry’s thrashing arms to the side, then rolled the dazed man the rest of the way onto his back.
John took a quick look back at the house before turning and smacking Barry across the face. Barry’s eyes snapped open but didn’t seem to register what he was seeing.
“What happened?” Jared asked, his voice laced with anxiety.
“Fucking panic attack,” John snapped, stepping away from their downed man.
Jared thought about how many times he’d felt on the verge of losing control, and how his training and late-night drinking sessions with Bart allowed him to put new and unreal experiences into perspective, affording him more control when the panic threatened to overwhelm him. Barry probably thought he had everything figured out after he’d effectively predicted the downfall of civilization, but he was nowhere near prepared for the gruesome reality of this new world.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 2 | Tears of Chaos Page 7
